Re: aalib (was Re: Netscape6 integrates RSS, IM, new DOM)

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From: Kragen Sitaker (kragen@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 13:54:59 PDT


Jesse writes:
> Sadly, AAlib depends heavily on the ability to set differing levels of grey
> or color. And it tends to be optimized for moving images. Neither of which
> is useful for textmode browsers (which are often displayed on vt100 style
> devices without finegrained color control..Though it would be an amusing way
> to render animated gifs. What you really want is something more along
> the lines of old lineprinter art generation tools...like those I bounced a
> moment ago.

As long as we're talking about integrating gif->ascii support into the
browser, differing levels of gray or color is ideal. (Too bad aalib
doesn't support real color.) Unless you're running the textmode
browser from an ADM3A or something.

Moving images might actually be a good thing --- anyone who's compared
a still TV picture to a moving TV picture has experienced how you can
fake higher spatial resolution by moving an image in subpixel
increments. If your text screen is 80x25, AAlib will only give you
something equivalent to 4000 or 6000 one-bit pixels, but you can
probably steal another factor of two or three by moving the image,
probably equivalent to between 8000 to 18000 pixels --- the latter of
which is the size of a 134x134 image. Too bad motion is so distracting.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)


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